With rapid development of information and communication field, there is a great need for a high-speed communication facility focused on a subscriber network. For this, an optical cable intermediate switching device capable of efficiently distributing/switching an optical feeder cable from a telephone office and an optical distribution cable to a subscriber is installed on an optical cable line. The optical cable intermediate switching device has a splice tray provided inside a compartment body and selectively distributes/switches an optical lead-in cable and an optical lead-out cable.
Generally, a conventional splice tray includes an excess accommodating part configured to accommodate an excess optical fiber disposed at both sides with respect to a cord support part configured to support an optical jumper cord for connecting optical fibers. The conventional splice tray has disadvantages in that distributing/switching work and maintenance and repair work are inconvenient due to optical fibers not being arranged for each subscriber or each function, and that protecting optical fibers and arranging excess of jumper cords and optical fibers are not performed efficiently.
Particularly, a conventional storage compartment accommodates an excessive number of optical fibers such that work of separating the fibers is difficult and a failure occurs due to cutting and bending other fibers when the separating work is performed.
Meanwhile, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,515, an optical fiber distribution system in which a card type tray and a mechanical connector are used instead of a connector and an adaptor to distribute/switch optical fibers is disclosed.
According to such an optical fiber distribution system, internal modules having a plurality of trays attached to perform pivoting motion with respect to an external cabinet or a compartment body are included. Each tray includes an optical fiber arranging part, an optical fiber switching part including a mechanical connector, and a jumper optical fiber arranging part. An optical fiber led into a tray is connected to one side of the mechanical connector of the optical fiber switching part, and a jumper optical fiber stored in the jumper optical fiber arranging part is connected to the other side of the mechanical connector. Consequently, the jumper optical fiber can be connected to an optical lead-in cable in a tray of a different internal module or a different tray in the same module such that distribution/switching between optical cables is performed.
In such a distribution system, the optical fiber arranging part and a splicing part cannot be located on the same plane. Thus, there is a problem in that a size of the distribution system becomes relatively large, and a jumper optical fiber can be damaged due to external force.
Meanwhile, each nation or optical communication carrier uses an optical cable having a different number of optical fibers. An optical cable that is already being used is replaced with an optical cable having different number of optical fibers in some cases. Like this, when a cable having different number of optical fibers is used, the number of optical fiber splicing parts of a mechanical connector being used for splicing optical fibers should Moreover be different. When the cable having a different number of optical fibers is used, trays cannot be used compatibly. Particularly, when an optical jump fiber is spliced from a tray at one side to a tray adjacent thereto, a means for separately protecting the optical jump fiber is required. When the number of optical jump fibers increases, interference between optical jump fibers and trays relatively increases. When one optical fiber that is arranged and spliced in a tray is short-circuited, a damaged optical fiber is difficult to be checked, and a tube through which an optical fiber is drawn out cannot be fixed easily.